1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to music box movements, and more specifically to music box movements operated under computer control via a solenoid or other electromagnetic activating mechanism.
2. Description of Related Art
Many previous music box movements have drive mechanisms and/or tine plucking mechanisms operated via clockwork or other purely mechanical means, whereby a melody provided as part of the music box movement is played. Improvements on such music box movements have relied on electrical motor drive mechanisms to rotate a perforated disc or to pull a perforated tape, wherein the perforations of the disk or the tape engage the points of a star wheel causing rotation thereof, and wherein the star wheel points pluck the tines of the musical comb to play a musical composition according to the pattern of perforations in the disk or tape. Alternately, a drum or disc having protrusions thereon may be rotated to directly pluck the tines or star wheel of a musical comb in a selected pattern and at selected intervals.
However, such previous discs, tapes and/or drums are limited to a fixed single, or fixed multiple, musical composition. Thus, changing the musical composition(s) requires changing a disk, tape or drum, and accordingly, subjects same to the possibility of damage during handling.
Other previous devices have overcome the limited composition problem by incorporating a mechanism to pluck or impact on the tines of the musical comb under computer control via solenoids. Unfortunately, due to the size of the solenoids necessary, the solenoids are staggered or operate through a linkage arrangement. One such a previous device has utilized a complicated pivoting lever mechanism operated via a computer-controlled solenoid to cause rotation of a star wheel having points thereon, wherein the points consequently pluck the musical comb tines. Unfortunately, such complicated pivoting mechanisms have attendant noisy operation and/or a tendency to jam that affects the quality of the musical sound emanating from the music box movement.
Therefore, it is readily apparent that there is a need for a music box movement that permits quiet operation, wherein musical compositions are selected and controlled via a computer operating through an efficient and tightly-spaced electromagnetic mechanism.